I'm working on a few small games, and I was wondering if I should use American or British English for my user interface? I'm not targetting any specific country, and this will probably be the only localization.
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3Why not use geolocation to make the decision? I hate applications that use Americanised English, because I'm English.– codeintheholeApr 23, 2012 at 23:42
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2@codeinthehole - doing localisation properly is hard, for a small game you don't necessarily have the resources (or time) to do a proper job. So rather than doing a half-baked job, not localising might be the correct solution.– ChrisFApr 24, 2012 at 7:45
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@codeinthehole And you can imagine how often Canadian English is an option...– msanfordApr 24, 2012 at 15:01
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@ChrisF .. come on, don't be soft. Life is hard .. it doesn't mean we should just give up.– codeintheholeApr 25, 2012 at 6:56
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@codeinthehole - I didn't mean it that way :)– ChrisFApr 25, 2012 at 7:58
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1 Answer
As much as it pains me to say it (as a Brit), if you're not going to have any localisation go with American spellings. This will be the preferred spellings for the vast majority of users - either as native speakers (Americans far outnumber the British) or as second language speakers (though there are significant number of those who use British English spellings).
The only exception would be if you are going for a "quirky, English vibe" for your game.
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3+1, but it's not completely true. In central Europe we learn Oxford/Britisch english and for me it's colour, while color is just plain wrong :) And we europeans far outnumber the us-americans. (Btw: What about aussies?)– kaiserApr 24, 2012 at 14:57
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Also not just spelling but word choice preferences, e.g. brackets vs parentheses, and things like how to write a date and measurement units Jul 25 at 20:15